


Bleeding out

by sshysmm



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Pre-Book 1: The Game of Kings, Prompt Fill, The Mob, the band Au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2021-01-26 23:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21382660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sshysmm/pseuds/sshysmm
Summary: Against his will, Lymond has become the tame musician of the Irish mob in New York. An attack on the boss outside a restaurant leaves Lymond shaken - but lucky to be alive.--Written for Whumptober 2019, set in the Band AU I've been writing (see collections).--There's 31 of these ficlets and I apologise profusely for burying other work in the tags. I will *always* tag these as 'the band au' and you can usethis nifty extension (ao3rdr)to block the tag if this isn't your thing and isn't what you want to see in the Lymond tags!
Kudos: 4
Collections: Ficlets in the Lymond Band AU for Whumptober 2019





	Bleeding out

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr, October 23 2019.](https://notasapleasure.tumblr.com/tagged/whumptober2019)

Francis blinked at the impact of the sidewalk, the air drummed from his chest by the landing and Dragut’s hand in his back. He didn’t notice the grazed flesh on his chin and on the heels of his palms, nor did he worry about holes in the knees of the designer suit.

Barely a foot from his own face, the skin of the doorman had paled to the grey of old gum. The man’s eyes were perfectly, cartoonishly round, and he sweated in the sultry May air. His breathing was uneven and he gulped like a fish - as he did, Francis saw the first tendril of blood well from within his mouth and spill onto the sidewalk.

“He’s bleeding out!” Francis struggled beneath Dragut’s hold, trying to push himself up even as the Turk’s fist moved to grip the scruff of his collar. He caught strands of blonde curls with hasty fingers and Francis swore when the rough hold shoved him flat against the ground again.

“And what are you going to do about it?” Dragut hissed through clenched white teeth.

Dragut raised his own dark eyes cautiously, scanning the bodies around them with accustomed fortitude. The boss was fine: bellowing instructions like a sealion on the shore, he still found time to rain curses down on the nation of Italy and all her children. The boss’ daughter was curled like a pebble beneath the arm of another guard, and over the sound of heavy breathing and one or two rueful Hail Marys the screeching of tyres faded into the distance.

“Who’s hit?”

“Bryan,” Dragut answered his employer.

Francis did not listen to the rest of the exchange. He could feel warmth seeping into his shirt: a spring that welled from Bryan the henchman’s abdomen and spread across the sidewalk to soak into Francis’s clothes.

His body shook at the sensation. He wanted to close his eyes and sink his face into the darkness of his hands, but if he did so he might mistake the blood for his own. So Francis lay there and stared into the slow-blinking eyes of a man called Bryan, watching the whites cloud up until they were the same blueish hue as the surrounding skin. Francis thought about speaking some platitudes - _it’ll be all right_, or, _what did you expect in this line of work_ \- but his mouth moved with hollow breath, no sound forthcoming for a man he didn’t know and who had probably spent his life doing unspeakable things for dirty money.

Around him, the mob was gathering up its dignity, piece by piece. Men stood and brushed off their pale spring coats and pressed trousers. Hats were retrieved from gutters, weapons had already disappeared into pockets and holsters.

Francis saw Dragut’s brown fingers drop to scrabble below Bryan’s tight shirt collar. Bryan did not flinch, but Francis did as a crimson bubble swelled and popped on white lips left vacant and open like the dead man’s eyes. Dragut clucked philosophically and stepped over the body to grab Francis’s arm.

Francis struggled petulantly to shake off Dragut’s bruising hold and scrambled to his hands and knees, pausing only when nausea took hold.

“Come on, they might make another pass,” someone said.

He shuddered, his stomach caving in and rejecting a lunch he had not been able to enjoy even when sitting at the white-draped table. The blood on his clothes was already coagulating and cooling, leaving him weighted down by the proximity of death. This time, he allowed Dragut to pull him to his feet, and this time, he made sure not to look down at the body on the sidewalk.

In the distance, they heard the noise of a car accelerating, and hot rubber wailed on tarmac.


End file.
